


the airbending scroll

by himemiya



Series: Languages AU [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU: Nations speak different languages, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Zuko (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, and also therapy, he's not getting it in this fic but he is making friends and growing as a person!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25452568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/himemiya/pseuds/himemiya
Summary: The word for Avatar is the same in all four languages. Four syllables. Since Sozin’s comet, the Fire Nation has spelled it with three, erasing the character for “air,” but Zuko knows what he’s looking for. The trouble is finding it.(A Zuko-centric exploration of a world in which all four nations speak, read, and write different languages, but the rest of canon remains unchanged. Consideration of the Zuko+Aang parallels and relationship more than any other, but definitely not romantic. Some pre-canon scenes and some "between scenes" that occur in the timeline of the show)
Relationships: Aang & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Languages AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843525
Comments: 39
Kudos: 402





	the airbending scroll

**Author's Note:**

> TW in the second section for Ozai abusing his son (section "once when he's eight..." to "she pulls him into a tight hug and says nothing" Ozai being a piece of shit dad is referenced throughout the fic but that's the one specific incidence  
> Um it gets explained in the fic but Earth/Fire use the same alphabet and Water/Air use the same.  
> There's one retelling of a scene from canon where I literally had the transcript open in front of me but mostly it's pre-canon and between-canon moments  
> I have a lot more thoughts in the endnotes bc I literally started this fic the day I published my first one and then life got ahead of me.  
> Also, this was beta'd by me sometimes while extremely high so I apologize for errors.

His mother told Zuko that long ago, it was the Fire Lord’s job to travel to all four nations on diplomatic missions. Being able to speak to foreign dignitaries without using a translator was a matter of honor. Now, his language tutors mostly teach him war vocabulary. But Zuko still believes that as Fire Lord, he should be able to speak to all his subjects, even the ones in the backwards Earth Kingdom and the ones who aren’t his yet in the Water Tribes, so every night, he pores over supplemental materials from the his tutors and the library. And he’s good at it. Not as good as Azula, who already can tell the enemy to surrender while mercy is still available in three languages, but for now, she’s stopped there. He can hold a conversation, not just a hostage situation. In fact, he’s so busy copying out the tenses of the Earth language’s irregular verbs that he doesn’t even notice that someone is standing in front of him until they slam a hand over his parchment (and he definitely doesn’t jump, not even a little).

“It’s pointless, you know,” Azula smirks.

“What is—hey!” She’s taken his brush right out of his hands. When he jumps up and grabs at her, she dances out of the way, and he spills ink all over his practice scrolls. She’s already on the other side of the room, but he comes after her. He’s never been good at giving up. “Give that back!” he yells, running at her with his hands outstretched.

She deftly steps out of his way. “Learning all of these languages is pointless, Zuko. It’s all going to be the Fire Nation soon. You’ll only need to know one. Why waste your time?” She tightens her fist around the brush and for a moment all he sees is bright blue fire. When she holds her palm out, all that’s left is a pile of ash and ostrich-horse hair. She drops the pile into his frozen, outstretched hand. “There you go, Zuzu! See you at dinner.”

When she’s gone, he furiously dabs the ink off the scroll. There’s a giant splotch in the middle of his copied sentences, but the original is still intact. He takes out an extra brush from the hiding space in the floorboards that Azula hasn’t found yet and practices his future imperfect until dinnertime. After dinner, his mother comes to his quarters, and she practices his Water Tribe accent with him until they dissolve into giggles at his terrible pronunciation of the word for fishing vessel.

***

Once, when he’s eight, their father sits in on one of his and Azula’s language lessons. She’s already sped through the basics of the alphabet, and it’s been decided that she’s ready to sit in with Zuko. (He’s sure it has nothing to do with what Azula did when the tutor implied she could stand to spend a couple more weeks on the basics of Fire Nation phonetics. Crouching behind one of the tapestries, he heard that the palace quietly paid for the tutor’s lost scrolls as well as his convalescence). Their new tutor, Kikuko, drills them on the form and function of Earth Kingdom military shorthand. Sweat drips down her brow, and she shifts uncomfortably every time Ozai moves. Usually, he doesn’t. His eyes fix on Azula as she explains the common shibboleths used to preserve the integrity of a hawk message. When she finishes, he commends her, and suggests she spend the rest of the afternoon practicing her katas rather than in the classroom. Azula smirks at Zuko when she leaves, conjuring the smallest blue flame on the tip of her fingers.

Now it’s only him, Kikuko, and Ozai. Zuko glances sideways at his father and wishes that his mother had come. When Ursa sits in, she brings azuki buns and presses them into his hands at the end of the lesson. Ozai only flicks his gaze up Zuko’s entire body, pausing for a moment at his shaking hands. His lips twist into a sneer. “How is the boy?”

Kikuko jumps so badly that she nearly upsets the ink. She reddens and smooths her robes out, but she doesn’t take her eyes off her lap. “His progress is excellent, Prince Ozai, sir! He’s very advanced for his age. Yesterday we spent four hours going over the entirety of the fifth and sixth level vocabulary scrolls!”

Now it’s Zuko’s turn to look at his lap and start making himself as small as possible, because four hours of tutoring overlaps with his firebending practice, which he definitely didn’t have permission to miss. He slides his eyes over to Ozai, who’s looking at him like he’s the servant who dropped roast chicken-tuna at dinner last week. Zuko hasn’t seen her since. “Is that so,” his father snarls flatly. “Well, you are dismissed.”

Kikuko’s face relaxes for the first time in an hour, and she runs out so quickly that Zuko watches her heels for signs of smoke. Now it’s only him and Ozai. Zuko drops to the floor and folds himself into a full bow. “My deepest apologies, father,” he says, the words falling at as quickly as possible as Ozai stands. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to, it—” was just so nice to be good at something, he doesn’t say. During firebending lessons, his katas never come out right. His tutors are always sticking his hands in freezing water.

Ozai snarls, low and guttural, and his hand dashes out and seizes Zuko’s wrist. He hauls his son to his feet, and then to his toes. Ozai’s grip gets tighter and tighter, but Zuko doesn’t struggle. He deserves this. He’s supposed to become one of the strongest firebenders in the world, and instead he wasted his time on Earth Nation scrolls. He failed his father and the Fire Nation, and this is his punishment. When the bone finally snaps, he only whimpers a little.

Ozai throws him onto one of the seats. “Let this be a lesson to spend more time on something useful and less on a pathetic language of pickens,” he snarls. “If you aren’t, it’s better to do nothing at all.” He turns on his heel and leaves.

Zuko cradles his broken wrist and doesn’t move until his father is out of sight. Later, he tells his mother that he fell out of a tree in the gardens. She pulls him into a tight hug and says nothing.

***

After Ursa disappears, Zuko prefers to do his language work in the royal library. Azula never comes down there. No one comes down there anymore, really, unless it’s one of his father’s generals picking up a requested scroll on war strategy. It’s quiet and the librarian, Bingwen, reminds him of Uncle Iroh. He keeps sweets in the bowl on his desk, and he’s always trying to coax Zuko into playing a game of Pai Sho with him. Zuko tries a couple times, but Bingwen always starts with a strange lotus pattern that Zuko can never remember, and anyway, he’s not very good.

Bingwen is kind even when they’re not playing Pai Sho. He’s kind enough that Zuko can ask him a question without flinching. “What does this word mean?” Zuko asks, jabbing his finger at the Earth Kingdom scroll. It’s old, so old that not even Bingwen could find the translation scroll, so Zuko has made it his private mission to translate it himself. Mostly by himself. Well, if he’s being honest, Bingwen has been helping a lot. So far, it seems to be the painstaking narration of a festival to the wind spirits that occurred in Ba Sing Se around 200 years ago. (Useless, Azula would scoff. That won’t help you win a war. Zuko prefers to think of it as important cultural research).

Bingwen holds the scroll up, squinting behind his glasses. “Ah,” he says, smiling. “That’s an old Earth Kingdom word for airbender. This particular word was adapted from the Air language itself, so it makes sense that you wouldn’t know it. It looks like this section is about a ritual that airbenders from the Western Air Temple performed for the wind spirits.”

Zuko scowls. He hasn’t learned much about airbenders. He knows that the Air Nation violently opposed Fire Lord Sozin’s unification of the world, and the Fire Nation defeated them to crush the resistance and send a warning to all who dare oppose them. (He knows that this scroll calls them the Air Nomads, not the Air Nation. It also devotes considerable time to the vegetarian dishes prepared for the airbenders for the festival, who were apparently so peaceful that they wouldn’t kill even an animal to eat it. Zuko doesn’t know what else the scroll says about the Air Nomads—Nation. He finished translating a meditation about the sanctity of life and the importance of balance, and then gave the scroll to Bingwen. After a couple of weeks, Bingwen gave him the original back, but he didn’t tell Zuko what the section said. Zuko almost asked, but one of his father’s generals walked into the library and Zuko threw himself under one of the tables. Bingwen didn’t say anything). So no, Zuko doesn’t know anything about their language.

“Prince Zuko,” Bingwen says. He sounds so much like Uncle that Zuko begins a bow before his eyes catch up to his ears. Zuko flushes, but when he looks up, Bingwen has that same fond smile that Uncle gets when he watches Zuko feed the turtleducks.

“Uh, yes?” Definitely not a response befitting of the crown prince of the Fire Nation. Not for the first time, Zuko silently thanks Agni that neither Azula nor his father are fond of the royal library.

“You have a great aptitude for languages.”

Zuko flushes. “It is my duty as the future leader of the Fire Nation. I need to be able to communicate with all of my subjects.” His fingers curl into his palms. Azula always lies. Even if (when) the Fire Nation conquers the rest of the world, they’re not just going to destroy the other languages. The Fire Nation’s language is obviously superior, but there’s undeniable value in the oral and written cultural and political tradition of the Water Tribes, and the Earth Kingdom. Of the Air Nomads, too, Zuko thinks, and he wishes… His wish borders on treasonous, and Zuko knows what happens to traitors in the Fire Nation, so he bites that thought off before it appears on his face.

“I’d like to introduce a new dimension into your language training. Come here.” He gestures for Zuko to step behind the circulation desk.

Zuko’s jaw drops. He tries to school it into the blank expression Azula uses when she sees one of the generals use a firebending move she’s going to test on him later. In the eleven years he’s been alive he’s never seen anyone besides Bingwen behind the desk. He comes around.

Now when Zuko’s jaw drops he’s too distracted to close it. There’s a hatch door behind the desk, with a ladder leading into a basement room. The room looks like it’s filled with scrolls. Bingwen effortlessly hops down and holds a hand out for Zuko. Zuko flushes again. Does Bingwen really think that the crown prince of the Fire Nation can’t climb a ladder? He hops down himself and catches his toe on the last rung of the ladder. Zuko crashes to the ground.

“Prince Zuko, are you alright?” Bingwen’s bespectacled face is full of concern, but he doesn’t hold his hand out this time. Zuko dusts himself off and stands as tall as he can.

“I’m fine.” He looks around at the room. It’s even larger than he thought. Shelves of scrolls line the walls and floor, so many that he doesn’t think he and Bingwen could stand shoulder to shoulder between them. Some of the scrolls look as old as the one’s he’s seen in the Dragonbone Catacombs. Some look older. “What is this?”

Bingwen clears his throat. “You could call this the restricted section of the library, Prince Zuko. There is information here that the Fire Lord and Sages have deemed too dangerous to the general public, but too useful to destroy. This is also where I keep certain rare texts.” He coughs lightly. “Your uncle is fond of this room.”

“Uncle Iroh is?” Zuko smiles despite himself, thinking of Uncle trying to fit between the shelves. “He was probably looking up ancient Pai Sho strategies.”

Bingwen smiles back. “Fire Lady Ursa was as well. In the early days of her marriage she would frequently come down here and read.”

Zuko starts. He hasn’t heard anyone say his mother’s name since she—since she disappeared. It hits like one of Ty Lee’s chi punches and turns his limbs to jelly. He needs to sit. He looks around and finds that there are no seats. Zuko lowers himself to the floor. It’s undignified, but his father isn’t here, so it’s okay. “What—what did my mother like to read down here?” he chokes out. He tries to imagine her on the floor (she had to sit on the floor) with a scroll in front of her, single sconce lit on the wall. Did Bingwen light it for her? What did the librarian know about his mom?

“Follow me,” says Bingwen. Zuko rises unsteadily and walks behind him to the farthest, darkest corner of the room. Bingwen looks around furtively and then slides back what looks like a wood panel to Zuko. Behind the panel is a stack of scrolls. Most look old, and several have scorch marks. Bingwen pauses and tugs one from the bottom of the stack. He hands it to Zuko.

Zuko stares. This scroll is relatively intact. It doesn’t matter though, because Zuko doesn’t understand any of it. The script is reminiscent of the Water language’s, but the words and structure are entirely foreign to him. He looks up at Bingwen, puzzled. “This is—”

“This is, as far as I’m aware, the only intact collection of Air Nomad writings in the world.” Bingwen whispers, even though it’s only the two of them. “Your mother proved herself quite proficient in the language. Far more than I. She wrote several translation scrolls for me, and even a guide to the grammar and syntax. Pronunciation works similarly to the Water Tribe language.” Bingwen pulls out a stack of much younger scrolls and hands them to Zuko. “These are hers. Now they’re for you.”

Fire Lord Sozin destroyed the writing of the Air Nomads so their dangerous teachings couldn’t fall into the wrong hands. If whatever Zuko was thinking about Air Nomad teachings earlier was probably treason, this was definitely treason. If Azula were here, she wouldn’t even call in the guards. She would set the scrolls on fire herself. 

Zuko holds the scrolls and thinks about his mother’s handwriting. From that day on he spends his Tuesday and Thursday nights (and if he’s not too busy, his Saturday and Sunday ones) in the restricted section of the library, sometimes until the sun rises. He’s good at it. Zuko works his way through all of his mother’s scrolls and almost all of the originals. When he translates a full airbending scroll by himself, Bingwen practically glows with pride. “You may be the last living person in the Fire Nation fluent in the Air Language,” he says, and gives Zuko the original scroll as a gift. Zuko flinches. What about my mother? he doesn’t ask.

One day when he’s thirteen, Zuko walks into the royal library on a Tuesday night and finds it empty. He runs behind the desk and tries to pull at the hatch, but it doesn’t give. It’s as though the door has been sealed from the inside. There’s no sign of Bingwen, but Zuko finds a lotus tile under the Pai Sho table. The next day, there’s a new librarian behind the desk, without Bingwen’s kind eyes. He openly scoffs when he sees the Earth Kingdom scrolls. 

From that day until he’s banished, Zuko studies in his room.

***

The word for Avatar is the same in all four languages. Four syllables. Since Sozin’s comet, the Fire Nation has spelled it with three, erasing the character for “air,” but Zuko knows what he’s looking for. The trouble is finding it.

It’s hard to read even out of his good eye, but Zuko pours over every piece of writing he can find at the Western Air Temple. There’s not much: Sozin’s army was thorough in their destruction. None of the half-crumbled mosaics mention the Avatar. The few charred scrolls scattered on the grounds reveal even less. But he has to try. He needs to find the Avatar, so he can return home and maybe, finally, Father will—will think him worthy. So he spends days sifting through the scraps.

There are instructions on how to make air bison cheese (there are no more bison). There are wisps of airbending scrolls like the one he still has tucked in a tube in his tunic (there are no more airbenders). There are instructions on rituals, probably for acolytes (there are no acolytes. Even if there were, there’s no more temple). There’s nothing about anything alive and certainly nothing about the Avatar, and his good eye is burning as badly as his left eye now, and he wants to go _home_.

“Fuck!” Zuko yells. He sets the pile on fire. “It’s useless,” he hisses. “There’s nothing on the Avatar here.”

Uncle Iroh comes behind him and places a hand on his shoulder. He hasn’t said anything to Zuko for three days, since he suggested Zuko rest. When Zuko started reading aloud, Uncle’s eyes widened and his mouth opened like he was going to say something, but he kept his mouth shut.

Iroh speaks now. “What are you going to do now, Prince Zuko?”

Zuko kicks the pile of ashes again for good measure.

“Travel the world until we find the Avatar. I won’t rest until he’s mine!” He likes to think he would sound a lot more imposing if his knees hadn’t picked that exact time to buckle and send him sideways into Uncle Iroh, who wraps Zuko into his arms.

“Very well, Prince Zuko. Would you like to return to the ship now?” Iroh rights him but keeps an arm thrown around his shoulders.

If he breaks concentration for even an instant, Zuko knows his knees are going to give out again. He shakes Uncle’s arm off and walks to the ladder they set up when the ship docked. If he focuses all his energy, he thinks he’ll be able to make it down. Once they’re on the boat he’ll set a course to the next Air Temple. This one was worthless, but the next one…he won’t know until he tries.

So he tries. Again, and again, and again.

***

The Water Tribe boy can’t understand a word Zuko is saying. Unfortunately, he’s already shaking the old woman before he registers the confusion on the other boy’s face. He lets out a yell of frustration and throws her to the ground. The Water Tribe boy, who was poised to run to him—and honestly, Zuko would love to see how the Southern Water Tribe trains their warriors—positions himself in front of the old woman instead. Zuko clenches his fists. “Where are you hiding him?” he yells, in the right language this time.

The Water Tribe boy is still in his pitiful warrior’s stance, but now he’s…giggling?

Zuko’s messed it up, again. This Water Tribe warrior—the only one left in his village, unless Water Tribe men are even more cowardly than he’s been taught—is _laughing_ at him. “I know you’re hiding him!” he says angrily.

“Your accent sucks,” the Water Tribe boy says, laughing too hard to move. Zuko turns around. He can’t let the enemy see him turn bright red. Okay, his accent sucks. So what? It’s been…a while (his mother was the only one who would practice Water languages with him). _Fuck_. What if the warrior still has no idea what he said? What should he do?

Whatever comes next has to come after he dodges the club coming at him. Apparently Water Tribe training isn’t _that_ bad. Seeing the other boy’s terrible form, Zuko comes up with an alternate hypothesis: turning around in a battle is just terrible enemy training. He groans to himself—Azula would never do that. Well, she couldn’t speak the language. They had never learned it formally. Where would they use it? The Northern Water Tribe was wrapped in a defensive fortification of ice. The Southern Tribe was almost destroyed. Speaking to prisoners, the only option, was beneath a prince and princess. He’s not a prince anymore, though.

At least it’s easy to recover from this fuck-up. The Water Tribe boy is even worse than he first thought when he dodged that club. He handles a spear like he’s never fought with one before. It’s all too easy to disarm him and toss him into the snow. Zuko clenches his jaw and goes over how to say _Where is the Avatar_ again. Then something heavy hits him in the back of the head and he sees stars. _Fuck_. Obviously, Zuko needs a more universal language. When he gets up, he bends his fire into daggers.

And then he’s on the ground _again_. Is he really that pathetic? A red and yellow blur moves across his vision, and Zuko finds himself staring at…an airbender. The last airbender. The _Avatar_. Zuko springs to his feet. The Avatar says something to his Water Tribe friends, but he has more important things to worry about. At his signal, his men surround the Avatar. Zuko shifts into a fighting stance, but before he knows it, he’s on the defensive as the Avatar sends snow his way. When he’s melted the snow, he hears the Avatar say, “Looking for me?”

_Only for the last 112 years_ , Zuko thinks. He focuses his gaze on the Avatar and…what the fuck? This is a kid ( _you were just a kid_ , he thinks for a moment. Those thoughts are counterproductive). He needs to focus on his mission.

His mission that he needs to salvage. The brat—Avatar—spoke to him in his own language. He wonders if it’s really true that the Avatar is born speaking every language. No language tutors or hours spent drilling pronunciation and grammar—only the power of hundreds of past lives. For a moment, Zuko entertains the notion of practicing his Air language. He’s never gotten to practice out loud with someone who knew, really knew, what it sounded like. It’s easy to swat that thought away. Speaking a language that’s been dead for 100 years is an easy way to invite questions. Zuko wants answers.

He responds in the Fire language as he punches out flames. The villagers cower, terrified by the flames and no doubt by language they remember hearing before their warriors were taken away. The Avatar notices too. When he speaks again, it’s softly and in the Earth Kingdom style. His accent is perfect. He sounds like Azula’s clean blue fire, pouring out of her hands while Zuko can barely finish one of the beginner forms.

He comes with Zuko without a fight. Once the Avatar is below deck, Zuko runs his fingers over the staff. The Air Nomads have no direct translation to father, no equivalent for the word that fills Zuko’s stomach with fear and hope. The character for peace rests between the wings. If he remembers correctly, the word translates best as “spiritual fulfillment.” There’s no equivalent in the Fire Nation.

***

(“Do you think we could have been friends?” Aang asks, expression wistful. The harsh vowels of the Fire Nation sound so wrong coming out of his blue-tattooed head.

The Air Nation—no, Nomads—had five different words for friend. Zuko goes through all of them in his head. He doesn’t answer. He _can’t_.)

***

Zuko’s not terribly familiar with waterbending, but he can see that Aang and Katara are almost equally matched. And Katara is ( _fucking scary_ , he thinks, picturing her cold eyes and her finger pushing his chest) definitely a master waterbender, so there’s no reason for her to be behind Aang right now, rearranging his arms. His face is redder than a dragon lily, and when he and Katara brush noses, she goes pink. Zuko drops his head. His stomach churns. He thinks of the last time he saw Mai. He wrote her a haiku comparing her eyes to a baby tiger-deer. _Thanks,_ she said flatly, before pinning it to the wall with one of her knives. Her face stayed colder than the Northern Water Tribe. So did his.

“Hey Aang,” Sokka snorts. “What’s the Air Nomad word for oogie-woogie _wife_?”

“There isn’t one,” Zuko and Aang say at the same time. Their eyes meet across the temple. Zuko looks away first.

Katara gasps, one hand flying to the betrothal necklace at her throat. “No word for wife?” She turns to Aang, eyes wide.

“It’s not that the Air Nomads don’t—didn’t believe in love!” Aang starts, hands flailing. “There are words for relationships and, and partners and stuff! But marriage…that’s more of a legal thing. The Air Nomads believed that a true partnership was a spiritual bonding, so there was no need for a public ceremony or formal recognition.” He brightens and looks and Zuko. “But hey, Zuko, how did you know that? It’s not like it was common knowledge, even 112 years ago.”

Zuko keeps his eyes on the stone floor. “I…studied the language of the Air Nomads and became quite proficient.”

“What, to make it easier to hunt Aang down?” Katara asks, eyes narrowing.

“Hey,” Sokka says thoughtfully, “That’s pretty sm-”

“No!” Zuko shouts, fist clenching. “I mean, it did end up being useful for that, but I started learning before my banishment. I,” he says softly, “was pretty good with languages when I was a kid. I…I really liked it.”

“Okay,” Sokka says, “but that doesn’t explain _where_ you learned it.” He’s standing closest to Zuko, and while he doesn’t look as angry as Katara, the distrust is coming off him in waves.

_You didn’t ask that_ , Zuko thinks, but he bites the inside of his cheek. The way Katara is looking at him means no more yelling in this conversation. “The royal library. They had a, uh, secret collection of Air Nomad scrolls. The librarian showed them to me, and I used to study them all the time. Sometimes all night. By the time I…was banished, I could translate a scroll by myself.”

“Awesome!” Aang shouts, floating into the air for emphasis.

“Secret?” Sokka asks, crossing his arms.

Toph looks up from her dirt recreation of the Western Air Temple for the first time and fixes her gaze just to the left of Zuko’s face. “You were banished?” she asks.

The stressed, cornered feeling rising in his chest is the last thing he needs right now. One at a time. “It’s not that impressive,” Zuko mutters, hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean, I never got to practice, really. My accent is probably terrible, and I’ve barely done any reading or writing in the past three years. And, yeah.” He shifts his eyes to Sokka. “Officially, the Fire Nation destroyed all the texts of the Air language when they killed the Air Nomads. I’m sure there are some that still exist, but it’s not exactly public knowledge. The royal library had a huge collection, and even they kept it hidden. Some of them were translated. Some weren’t.” Finally, Toph. “Yes,” he says, and his voice is firm but his heart is hammering, “I was banished when I was thirteen. I couldn’t go home until I captured the Avatar.”

Sokka breaks the uneasy silence with an uneasy chuckle. “Well, at least they didn’t make it that hard for you. I mean, Aang is _twelve_ , and your boat was right by the—wait, _three years ago_? The Avatar hadn’t been seen—”

“I know,” Zuko says brusquely. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Not now, maybe not ever.

He shrinks under Sokka’s blue eyes, which are fixed on him with unnerving focus. Zuko remembers, now, who he heard oversaw the invasion plan on the Day of Black Sun. Sokka speaks again, softly. “Your scar…it’s a couple years old. Is it from your—banishment?” Across the courtyard, Toph’s shoulders stiffen.

“I _don’t_ want to talk about it,” Zuko hisses. He storms away. No one comes after him.

***

“So, Sparky, let’s talk,” Toph says, plopping down on his right side. Zuko jumps a little but doesn’t flinch. Toph always comes from his right side, where he has full vision, and she always makes noise as she approaches.

“What,” he says, eyeing her warily. It’s late. He can hear Sokka snoring down in the courtyard, mixed with Aang’s little snuffling noises and Appa’s big ones. Once he was sure everyone was asleep, he climbed up to one of the highest towers and lit one of the braziers. No one made fun of him or snapped at him for the rest of the day after the scar…non-conversation, but they way they’d acted was almost worse. They had looked at him like he was…fragile. He’s not fragile. He’s the crown prince (former crown prince) of their worst enemy and he chased them around the world, for Agni’s sake. He’d rather the fear than this. The fear he’s used to.

Then he realizes what she’s said. Rather, he realizes how she said it. “Where did you learn to talk Fire language? Your accent is excellent.” Much better than anyone he’s spoken to since his banishment besides Uncle, who doesn’t count because he’s from the Fire Nation, and Aang, who doesn’t count because he never had to learn it. He was just born knowing everything.

Toph shrugs. “My parents are loaded Earth Kingdom nobility. You don’t make that much money if you care who gives it to you, and you don’t make that much money if you can’t talk to them.” She snorts and bends a rock out of the tower, kicking it off the precipice. “They might have kept me secret, but I think they knew they couldn’t do it forever. And even if I spent years hidden in their mansion, I still needed to be a proper Beifong when I came out.” She reaches her arm back and punches him.

“Ow! Fuck!” That _hurt_. Zuko scowls before he remembers that she can’t see it. He settles for huffing out his nose.

Toph cackles delightedly. “It’s how I show affection. Don’t let Sugar Queen hear you talk like that, though. She picked up on the Fire language real fast. _Especially_ the curse words. Gotta have something to lecture about, you know?”

Zuko sighs. “She’s stressed.” _We all are_ , he doesn’t say. _We’re_ children _fighting a war_ , he doesn’t think. Instead, he says “She needs to take it out on someone.”

“Oh, like she does to you?”

Zuko stiffens, but Toph keeps going, her voice getting louder. “Look,” she says. “I don’t know what happened between you and Twinkletoes and Sugar Queen and Snoozles when they were heading to the North Pole. That was before me. And yeah, the shit you did at Ba Sing Se was fucked up. But I know that you’re here now, and you’re teaching Aang firebending, and you saved us from that crazy assassin, and you were telling the truth when you said that you’re good now. And that’s good enough for me.”

“T-thanks.” He’s surprised by the warmth in his chest and the prickling in his throat. He’s not surprised when she punches him again. “Hey, Toph,” he says, voice thick with gratitude. “Want to learn some Fire Nation navy curse words? You can practice them in front of Katara.”

He can only describe the smile Toph gives him as predatory.

***

After their first real firebending practice, Aang suggests that the two of them head down to the creek to cool off. They’re both soaked with sweat, even with their shirts shucked off after morning meditations, and Zuko has dirt all over his ass. Aang raced through the first couple of forms, and they even managed a little bit of sparring. Zuko told Aang that he did a great job for a beginner, but the water he’s guzzling can’t erase the acid feeling in his throat and the shame that started when Aang knocked him into the dirt. He thinks of blue flames and cold flagstones, when laughter wasn’t what followed failure. Aang is chatting brightly about forms and stances as they make their winding way down the forest path. Zuko concentrates on the laughter on the edge of every word and the warmth in Aang’s grey eyes. Everything about this is so new—so fragile. If he’s not careful, he’ll fuck this up. Like usual.

He’s so wrapped in his cocoon of shame and self-loathing that when Aang shouts “Race you!” and makes a beeline for the creek it takes a moment for his brain to catch up to his ears. Of course, in that moment, Aang has glided effortlessly into the water.

He has enough awareness to yelp, “Hey! That’s cheating!”

Aang erupts out in a geyser and flings water onto Zuko, whose overclothes are only half off. “No one said anything about using bending, Sifu Hotman,” he chirps, but a gust of warm air blows over Zuko and dries his clothing off.

Zuko grunts. “Next time,” he says, neatly folding his clothing into a pile before he slides in. It’s warmer than he thought it would be.

“Deal!” Aang pops up on his left side and he tries not to jump. “Can I ask you something?”

_I don’t know. Use your judgment._ “What is it?” Zuko asks.

“You said that you learned how to speak the Air language. Do you want to practice with me?” Aang’s eyes are huge and hopeful. “ _Would_ you practice with me?”

Sweet Agni. The quaver in Aang’s voice is barely perceptible, but it’s there. Zuko remembers, not for the first time, that he spent three years of his life chasing down a child. A child who was the sole survivor of a genocide intended to wipe him out, no less. A genocide ordered by his _great-grandfather_. His stomach curls. “I would love to.” The accent is terrible, he’s sure, but Aang’s face lights up like the sun.

***

They talk together almost every day now. Zuko, with his words stilted and awkward, and Aang, whose smile only gets more beaming the more grammar that Zuko butchers. Aang takes some of Katara’s paper supply to rehash the basics. Zuko discovers that he’s been pronouncing the vowels wrong his entire life (“It’s _basically_ the same as the Water Tribes’, but you need to elongate it more”) and that he still loves to learn languages. The dirt under his ass isn’t as cushy as the seats of the royal library, but he feels more relaxed than he ever has in his life.

And he’s still fucking good at it. “Flameo, Hotman!” Aang applauds when Zuko correctly diagrams and translates his sentence. His smile turns gentle, and his next words are in the language of the Air Nomads. “You weren’t joking when you said you were proficient.”

Zuko scowls, but he feels like the pleased flush on his face undermines his visible displeasure. “Of course I wasn’t,” he returns. “Why would I lie about that? I told you I could translate.”

Aang’s face falls. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant—it’s been so long since I’ve been able to talk to someone in the Air language. I tried to teach Katara and Sokka, but there was never time to get in depth. I had to teach them the other ones first just so we could…”

“Survive?” Aang nods gloomily.

“And then I tried to teach Toph, but that was even _worse_ , because the alphabet and the structure are completely different, and I couldn’t explain the difference to her because she doesn’t know the Earth alphabet, and after the first hour she earthbended me into the ground and told me that if I wasn’t gonna teach her something useful I should fu-back off.”

Zuko flinches. His wrist aches hollowly at the word _useful_. “Somehow, I don’t think she worded it like that,” he says drily.

“No, she didn’t.” Aang brightens up. “She did apologize, though! But I never tried again. So, this is really nice. Thank you.”

“It’s nice for me too,” Zuko admits. “I never got to practice talking, you know, properly” _because my great-grandfather ordered all the native speakers murdered_ “and even though the librarian showed me all the scrolls with the translations and the guides, he didn’t actually know it very well, so I was never sure how much I actually learned.”

“The librarian showed you? Did you ask?” Aang leans forward, chin in his hands.

Zuko snorts. “I’m pretty sure that asking for information about enemies of the Fire Nation qualifies as treason. Learning it was definitely treason.” When Aang’s face falls again, Zuko starts talking faster, until he’s tripping over a mix of Air and Fire vocabulary trying to remember which words are loanwords. “I mean, the librarian, Bingwen, would never have told anyone. He was really nice. He, uh, he reminded me of my uncle, actually. He was super proud of me for learning. He even gave me the first scroll I translated to keep. I think…I think they found out that he was keeping that collection because, um, one day I came in and he wasn’t there anymore, and the hatch was sealed shut. I heard the next librarian tried to open it once, and he couldn’t.”

Aang’s eyes are huge. “Do you think he’s okay?”

Zuko grunts. His first assumption is a resounding _no_. But if Bingwen was as similar to Uncle as Zuko thought, he’s good at finding a way out of tough situations. Anyway, if the Avatar could be found after 100 years, anything’s possible. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “I hope so.”

Aang nods seriously but says nothing. Zuko starts shuffling the stacks of paper in his hands, staring at the character for “bison” like it holds the secrets of the universe. After the amount of time it takes for him to see the same paper five times, Aang coughs softly. Zuko looks up. Aang’s eyes are mistier than he’s ever seen them. “Uh, are you okay?” says Zuko. Is Aang going to cry? Fuck, he doesn’t know what to do if Aang cries. Was Bingwen’s story really that sad? He was a nice man and similar to uncle, but he was far from the first palace employee that was replaced in the night for “counterrevolutionary ideas.”

“What was the scroll that Bingwen gave you?” Aang asks softly.

“It was an advanced airbending scroll,” Zuko replies. “My translation obviously wasn’t perfect but…it was understandable.” He rubs the back of his neck.

“Do you have it? Still?”

“Yeah.” Zuko pulls it out in such a hurry that the rest of the papers fall off his lap to the floor. The scroll is still tucked into his tunic, in the same tube he’s carried for the past three years. He thrusts the tube out to Aang.

Aang gently pulls the scroll out and unfurls the yellow parchment. His eyes scan the instructions of the Flying Gull Frog form. His fingers gently trace the arrows of the airbending master in the illustration. As he reads, he mouths along softly.

Zuko watches Aang. The silence hangs heavy between them. Zuko can’t think of any words. _I’m sorry that my great-grandfather ordered your people murdered and your culture destroyed and then I chased you around the world and tried to capture you_ feels like too much, and Aang would probably just say “It’s not your fault.” But would he say it with a forced chuckle, or with the same soft and sad voice he used to ask about the scroll?

Zuko watches Aang for the amount of time it takes the sun to move seven degrees. Suddenly, Aang’s head jerks up. “Sorry about that, Zuko! I know, we were supposed to be practicing!” He speaks brightly, but his voice shakes, and he won’t look Zuko in the eyes.

“Um.” Zuko swallows. “Do you—do you want to keep it?” Aang’s mouth opens, like he’s about to speak, like he’s about to say _no_. Zuko keeps going. “It’s not like I can use it, and I know you’re an airbending master but—I’m sure it’s been a while since you’ve seen an airbending scroll. You should have it.” He swallows. “I _want_ you to have it,” and he uses the Air Nomad word for gift of friendship. “After we defeat my father, you can— _we_ can break into that chamber in the library and rescue all the other writings.”

Aang is crying, holding the scroll with one hand and rubbing his face with the other. “Thank you, Zuko,” he says, and suddenly Zuko is holding one very damp airbender in his arms. Aang flings his arms around Zuko and says into the crook of his neck “You’re a great person.” He sniffs.

Zuko shifts. He pats Aang on the back for a couple moments, then flutters his hands helplessly. He settles on keeping his hands on the other boy’s shoulder blades, very lightly. “It’s nothing,” Zuko says, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Nothing compared to what we did to you. To what _I_ did to you.”

Aang pulls himself back to look straight at Zuko. His eyes are blazing. “It’s not nothing, Zuko. The airbending culture isn’t dead. This scroll…it proved that to me.” He settles back into a cross-legged position and hums thoughtfully. “Maybe we can set up people at the temples after the war. They might not be able to airbend, but we can pass on the Nomads’ teachings and traditions.” He beams at Zuko. “It’s not too late!”

Tears drip out of Zuko’s good eye. “You’re right,” he whispers. “It’s not.” Aang pulls him into another, much less violent hug. On the walk back to the temple, Aang starts brainstorming his plans for the group of people he’s decided that they’re going to call air acolytes. Zuko balances a blank piece of parchment on his hand and scribbles down all the ideas. He feels lighter than air.

**Author's Note:**

> I was tossing back and forth whether I wanted Zuko to be fluent/proficient in the Air Nomad language or not and then my brain was like well if Zuko and Aang are counterparts in the series it's an interesting contrast to have Aang be naturally fluent in every language while Zuko had to work at it :)  
> There's definitely gonna be a second part to this fic bc I literally had other scenes drafted for after the last one but then I was like Zuko is so uncharacteristically happy :') let's just let him live for now. And when I picked the title I realized it sounds super focused on Aang and Zuko so let's leave it on a scene of them!  
> Also this entire fic started with the idea "What if all the nations spoke a different language but the word for Avatar was the same in all of them but then the pronunciation of the word was a shibboleth in the fire nation because since Sozin they don't pronounce the character for air and the Gaang ends up getting in a fight or something w ppl calling them colony trash because they don't know that and later Zuko explains it." Which was a scene I wrote that I swear I will make fit in the second part.  
> Sorry to my fellow Zukka shippers that they barely interacted :( I swear I haven't forgotten about the Ambassador/consort Sokka follow up to For Your Sake.  
> If you ever wanna talk I'm zukosbian on tumblr!


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